


i'd like to run away someday

by antarcticas



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Spirits, Developing Relationship, F/M, Haunted Houses, Inspired by Hades and Persephone (Ancient Greek Religion & Lore), Obsession, Old Gods, Romance, Trapped, Young Love, Zutara
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-18
Updated: 2020-10-24
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:21:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26532772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/antarcticas/pseuds/antarcticas
Summary: Katara thinks she can see ghosts; Zuko thinks he can stay away from the innocent girl with blue eyes. They are both wrong.
Relationships: Katara/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 54
Kudos: 91
Collections: Spooky Zutara Challenge





	1. houses

**Author's Note:**

  * For [allthewaydown](https://archiveofourown.org/users/allthewaydown/gifts), [My_Bated_Breath](https://archiveofourown.org/users/My_Bated_Breath/gifts), [MarkedMage](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MarkedMage/gifts).



The day is crisp and the air is cold—when she steps on the autumn leaves that cover the ground like a blanket they crumple, and sound like radio static, and that is telling. Katara should have known to stay away, but Suki grabs her hand and tugs at her as they wander up the steps of the large abandoned house in the back-lot. 

“They say it’s haunted,” she’s told. “It’s been empty for years. They say that the family was cursed.”

“What kind of curse,” she asks, “lasts for this long?”

The site is a relic and the house is large and oriental, each stone and metal corner crafted with labor if not love; this she can tell. Dust coats their shoes as they walk up to the front door, and she suddenly wants to turn away, but her best friend grabs her hand, and they jump past the creaking step at the end and into the lonely and darkened main corridor. 

She thinks she can see a spider scuttle across the wall across from her and she shudders and twitches, holding Suki’s arm like a lifeline. “We really don’t have to do this.”

“What are you scared of?” the other girl laughs in a way that isn’t meant to be condescending but grates at Katara’s sensibilities. This is her sense of self-preservation, and she does not think she should feel ashamed of herself. “Take a risk for once in your life, Katara. Nobody has been here for centuries, it's fine.”

“I don’t—” she breathes out. “We’re here, aren’t we? We can leave now.”

A sliver of light worms through the back as they step closer and closer into the house, and now she can see the carpet under her feet, bright red and painted over with crimson and cobalt draconic creatures. Her feet scuffle the fabric and yet it still holds; the corridors are bare and loud. It has been centuries and yet nobody has stolen this carpet, like they’ve taken everything else. She wonders if horror dies over time, if this legend ever will. 

She shivers and wrenches her arm out of Suki’s grasp, spinning on her feet. “I’m leaving. I don’t want to go to—wherever—”

Suki just laughs once again. “It’s not far, Katara. Come on, I’ve done this before. You can just wait at the tree in the back—oh, come _on,”_ she pouts. “Fine. But I’m not going with you.”

Katara feels like something is _watching her_ and she almost trips over herself, staring down at the slightly decomposed carpet under her feet, before running back in the direction it follows, leaving behind the light and Suki’s chuckles. 

The corridor turns dark, and she reaches a hand out and feels the silk of a spider’s labor encompass her fingers; shuddering, she pulls away from the web and steps away from where it is, stepping back and back and back until she’s no longer on carpet, until her feet are pressing against something that’s inescapably wood, until she remembers that this house is centuries old— 

And then she is falling, falling through thin air—her mouth opens but she can’t hear her own scream, can barely feel herself as ash and wood cover her, and she splays out her arms and lets the stale currents of the earth enclose her. There is air, she knows this, but she cannot feel it.

She wonders, for a brief moment, if this is what Persephone felt like when she entered Hell, when she doomed herself to an eternity split apart. And then her front hits something solid and her skull reverberates. 

Whatever she’s touching is cold and stone and it dazes her, freezes her out of the haze she’s existing in. She pauses against the ground for moments before she turns and feels more particles of matter coat her, remnants of her fall. When she stares up at where she’s come from all she sees is darkness. She hopes that it was not too far; her bones sing and tell her the truth so she fights them by screaming.

The sound moves across the chamber she’s in, echoing and echoing until she brings herself up into a sitting position, and wraps her arms across her knees, and presses her hands on her ears to convince the cacophony to go away. Then Katara devolves to rocking herself on her knees, too shocked to think, too lost to believe.

When her cry for help disappears she stands up and reaches for the ceiling of this room—but there is none, of course—she grimaces and steps forward, feeling around her for a wall or anything of the sort. Her feet press forward curiously but the ground feels smooth and cold, like metal. 

She walks for what feels like ages, until suddenly her feet press against something smooth, and she bites her lip and reaches down to run her fingers over a slightly worn carpet and dares to have _hope._ Her gait picks up as she feels the corners of the material, follows it through the dark, and then she reaches out and feels something like a door panel. Her hands press insistently at the wall, and it falls down, and then she lands in another room . . . with a candle alight in the corner.

First she stares at it and lets her eyesight adjust to the new light; in the in-between her vision illuminates and leaves her starstruck, the universe clear to her. But soon that burst of light disappears and she realizes that she is in some sort of bedroom, strange as that thought is. An old bed with a large mantle and silk sheets is in the room’s middle, and a cabinet lines the wayside, a desk in the corner. And on the side she is next to there is a mirror— 

She turns around to look at herself in the candle’s light and then _screams_ as the spirits sing again. 

There is a man in her reflection.


	2. oceans

It’s a stroke of luck that he ended up here, and now he’s just startlingly curious. He doesn’t know if he should feel lucky or cursed that _this_ is the day he decided to come back to his home and remember his mother. 

He should not be here, in this portal; he should not be staring out into the mortal world at all. But he’s been doing this for years, and never before has he come across someone here, in the room he resided in all of those years ago. Often he sees humans come across the top part of this house, but they sense his curse and they know that this place is haunted.

He could do so much more if they could _see_ him but they never can—he makes a point out of being invisible. And yet today he is standing in the mirror and there is a girl in front of him, lithe and tan and _afraid._

Zuko bites back the part of himself that enjoys that feeling in order to stay firmly in place, hoping that he’s hallucinating. But then he sees blue eyes widen and the girl scream and scream until he wants to tear out his ears. He doesn’t have much patience so he snaps his fingers and runs his hand through his hair. “Nobody can hear you.”

She freezes and places a hand over her mouth, her eyes flitting over him, over his light robes and dark hair and . . . the scar. Always the scar, but it’s fine. He’ll have to wipe her memory, likely. Azula would leave her here to rot but he can’t do that. He’ll just be a rather nice demon—he can do that. It’s been a long time since he’s touched someone who wasn’t also dead, and he reaches a hand through the glass to place it on her shoulder, attempting to act comforting.

Of course he forgets, amidst all this, that she can’t _see_ him when he leaves the glass—this time she murmurs something he can’t quite hear under her breath before whispering like she’s terrified. “This isn’t real. I’m hallucinating and I need to find Suki—”

Zuko takes a little offense to that. “I’m plenty real,” he says crossly, taking his hand off her warm shoulder, and she screeches and steps back until she’s up against a wall and staring at him again. “Who are you?”

“I need to go,” she says without answering his question. Perhaps she truly does think that he’s a figment of her imagination—that would be funny. Still, he doesn’t know how she got here, and there’s a very small chance she knows how to get out. Normally he doesn’t mind being invisible but he doesn’t want to be unseen right now. 

Something is drawing him to her, something settling into his chest when he takes in her frazzled hair and smooth skin and plain outfit. She says she needs to go, but her blue eyes are fixed into place, and she looks almost—she looks almost _curious._ It’s drawing him in. He’s going to remember this interaction for centuries to come—he can already feel it strumming through his veins.

“So why aren’t you leaving?” he whispers deeply and she _shudders._

“I’m seeing a ghost. That’s not real—” 

“I can tell you again—I’m real,” he decides to be mildly devious and reaches a finger forwards to collect a small draft at the room’s bottom; he uses the wind to push her hair back and smooth it out so that it looks less like a rat’s nest. The brown waves fall across her shoulders, highlighting her collarbone and even her cheeks. He doesn’t know why he just did that. 

“Is this a trap? The thing Suki was talking about—that’s a reflection of me,” she rants less self-assuredly, doubtfully. “I’m imagining this.”

He should go and wipe her mind. Instead he smirks, and she whimpers as a tendril of wind caresses her neck, as he raises a finger in the glass and points to her. “I’m right here, sweetheart. Now, what’s your name?”

Azula would have probably cut this girl into pieces by now—his father would have burned her to ashes. Uncle would probably have offered her a cup of tea and had a good conversation with her before leaving her lightly brainwashed. All of them come here often; he has not been here in a long time. Even the clothes she’s wearing, a pair of loose jeans and a small shirt, look odd to him, although he’s seen Ty Lee roam around in familiar fashions. 

She stays still before her lips move like she’s in a trance being pulled toward him. He doesn’t know if he’s unintentionally doing that—he hopes not. “My name is Katara.”

“And why are you here, Katara?”

“I got lost,” she murmurs, her eyes wide and oceanic as she steps towards him, and he suddenly wants to gasp. “Can you help me?”

Her tone is dazed and her expression is suddenly glassy. He’s not quite sure what he’s done or even if he’s doing anything. He lurches out of the mirror again, and takes her in, and whispers something against his common sense. “You want to leave, don’t you?”

“Yeah,” she nods compliantly, and her lips twist forward sadly. “I think I’m losing my mind. I’m seeing ghosts. Can you help me?” 

She presses a hand to her head, like she’s dizzy, and he escapes the mirror to exist beside her and pick her up as she collapses on his bed. She looks solemn, lying there. Almost dead. He should remove this from her memory, even though she’ll likely consider it nothing more than a dream. He should. 

Zuko picks up the girl and wills himself back up to the house’s top floor and leaves her laying outside on a bed of grass, warm and alive in the crisp air. 

“Katara,” he whispers, moving away as she starts to open her eyes.


	3. dreams

Katara is not normally clumsy—

—But in the days that follow her visit to the strange house at the end of the lane, luck seems to be on her side. When she sits in her chemistry class and stares out the window she almost pushes over her coffee . . . but the cup lands in her hand, perfectly untouched. 

When she stumbles on the roadside, almost into the bicycle lane, the wind lifts her off her feet and back onto the pavement. Her heart thuds when Suki asks her if she caught herself, and she nods, because that has to be it.

When she stresses over her anthropology test and tries to cook dinner at the same time, she almost overboils the pot. She doesn’t hear her timer go off and is ready to walk into a mess of a kitchen. Instead, the stove is cold and her spaghetti is perfectly done.

She attributes this all to luck because she’s scared what else it could be. This is all material—perhaps fate is smiling on her this once.

It's when she gets lunch with her brother and Suki and Aang one day that she grows further unsettled. “You smell like smoke,” Aang sniffs, and she lurches back into her seat and stares at her waffles. 

“You know I don’t smoke—”

“Not cigarette smoke,” Sokka notes. “Like fire. It isn’t actually that bad. Did you change your perfume or something?”

“Now that I think about it, you have been smelling strange lately—”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” she tells them as she dredges her fork in syrup. “You’re all probably imagining it. It’s something else.”

“Yeah,” Suki says. “Maybe we’re leaving the heat on too long or something. We’ll figure it out.”

When she goes home she showers immediately, and the minute she steps into the bathroom she feels _cold,_ suddenly. She shivers under the water’s warmth, but then feels strangely comforted when she walks outside again and slides into her bed, a strange musky heat enveloping her. She doesn’t know quite what that is—she doesn’t know if that’s the smell and she doesn’t know the implications of that—but she’s tired and she lets fantastical thoughts elude her.

It is the dreams that are the most alarming, that contain images she doesn’t comprehend when she’s awake. Perhaps she forgets them; perhaps she doesn’t. Nothing occurs in them, exactly, after all . . .

Katara dreams of failing school and her last birthday, of her ex-boyfriend and her last road trip with Suki. She dreams of her mother’s dead body and of her brother’s beside it, of her father and grandmother and everyone she cares about being burnt alive. She dreams of fiery explosions and loss and pain.

She _dreamt_ of those things—that would be a more apt descriptor of what’s happening to her now. Because she doesn’t _dream_ anymore. When she’s awake she attributes that even further to her strange lucky streak—but when she sleeps she doesn’t see pure darkness.

There had been a boy, a man, a _creature_ in the mirror she had seen that day. It’s likely that was just another dream, she knows this, but she still cannot get his sharp features out of her mind. Half his face was covered by a mottled scar and he was wearing silken crimson robes and he had stared at her and called her _sweetheart_ and he had been a monster . . . and yet he’d looked kind.

But he doesn’t exist.

_He doesn’t? Does he?_

When she dreams now she’s back at that house—she is falling and falling and screaming for Suki to come and get her, but the sound just echoes until she’s surrounded by versions of herself lying. She walks through a hall and finds a bedroom and she sees a man in the mirror and she isn't afraid, this time. She’s curious.

The first time she doesn’t move, and he whispers to her in low tones, telling her he’s going to save her. _Hello, sweetheart. Are you lost? Don’t worry. I can save you. I’ll always save you. Nobody will ever be stuck in this house again. I don’t like seeing you here, you do not look like you belong here. I’ll let you out._ And then when she wakes up in her bed she feels like she’s lying in the sun; she feels the shadow of _touch_ on her shoulders and she pays it no heed.

The second time she murmurs out, asks who the man is. He sounds confident, looks disheartened. _It doesn’t matter who I am. I’m not like you and if you knew you’d be terrified of me, more than you already are. I do not want you to be scared of me. Do you understand?_ And then she nods and feels an urge to comfort him, and he disappears from the mirror, and when she raises her palm in the air there is raised skin against her fingers; her thumb feels lips. _It doesn’t matter who I am. I’m here._

The third time she asks if he will go with her; she’s not sure why, only knows that she is compelled. He raises a hand out and strokes her arm. _Will you come with me? I am always with you. This is all I will have with you, Katara, but I'm always there. Would you like to know me, sweetheart?_

The third time something shatters inside of her and she is pulled forward into the mirror, she falls into it like it’s glass; her eyes close and all she can see is the dark, all she can feel are startling warm arms around her. He is silent and she is silent and then he speaks, says he is sorry, that she will be fine. She is so confused. She is so confused and then she feels like she is laying underneath the starlight, the sun on her face—

That night she wakes up twisting in her sheets, only one word on her lips. _Zuko._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> omg _anyway_ this fic is my new baby! thank you all for reading! have I mentioned how much I love this fandom lately? because I do love it. so much. all of you? you are all amazing. if you keep up with my writing I love you so much and I can get really awkward with comments and things but I want you all to know that you mean everything to me and that I am a mess and so happy that you take the time out of your day to read my scribbles <3 
> 
> ah sorry yeah I'm like perpetually overwhelmed in my mind but it makes me feel fuzzy when I realize that some people may actually derive enjoyment from what's essentially escapism to me. okay I'm done with being weird lots and lots of love! you guys are the best!
> 
> -Dee


	4. touches

And so Katara finds herself back here. She does not know why she is here, but she knows that there is something wrong, and she knows that the solution is somewhere here. It is here, where it all started, where she first dreamt of the mirror and the strange boy. 

Suki is not with her, this time, and the crunching of leaves which once seemed like rebirth, like peace, now scare her. Each step she takes is calculated, and by the time she’s in front of the door, she wants to go back. She didn’t know what to tell her friends, so she had not said anything. _I’m losing my mind,_ she could have whispered. _There’s a boy in my mind, and he talks to me, and he’s always with me._

No, she could not have told them. And Katara is many things, but she is determined. This is not going to be like the first time. This time, she is going to find answers. She is going to find the mirror once again. 

Still, her feet drag as they hit stone, and she is about to enter when they stop entirely. Seconds later warmth floods through her, and her heart almost stops beating, the palpitations disappearing, cloaked by something eternal. 

“I want to go in,” she says quietly. 

The heat finds its way past her feet but still doesn’t let her go. It travels up her spinal cord, across her shoulders, and then rests lightly on her collarbone. He’s behind her. It almost feels like hands, and it is strangely close. Her breath catches in her chest, roaring tides put into place, and her whole body starts again when fingertips brush her cheeks. They are remarkable, and some part of her thinks this cannot be real. This is like with her mother. And perhaps she could have convinced herself of that if not for the name which is living in her skull. 

“Zuko,” she whispers. 

The touch stills for a second before dropping to her neck. It is warm but she feels it like a chill. Whatever this is, it is not letting her go. She tries to move her feet again. “Are you doing this?”

She should be so, so terrified right now, like she was terrified of the unknown. But she isn’t, as much. She feels more terrified of the red carpet inside of this terrible mansion than the touch at her side. “Will you talk?”

The heat stills. “Can you speak?” she finds herself patient. 

Fingers tap across her back methodically. “So you can?” she complains, almost wanting to giggle despite herself. “But you won’t talk to me.” Then she sobers. “Can you let me go in, then? I want to talk to you. Or see you. Zuko.”

She doesn’t know why she wants to go in, but she knows that she has a foothold on her conscience. She is deciding to do this. She waits patiently for him to remove his spiritual grip on her feet, but he doesn’t. Instead, she loses her balance and falls forward. 

Perhaps this house is cursed for reasons outside of her own mind. She is waiting for her head to slam down, but it doesn’t. Instead her feet lift up, weightlessly, and her eyes close, because she can almost suppose what is happening. When she opens them again she is in midair, but she feels surrounded by fire, flames which are not burning her. She tells herself she is calm, but when she looks down and sees nothing keeping her suspended like this, horizontally, she starts. 

The fire tightens around her. She has been peaceful this whole time, somewhat accepting of this strange incident, but now she is growing alarmed. Is this going to kill her? Is her mind going to kill her—

As if to soothe her, the grip loosens. She moves sideways, her hair flying in her face, slapping her, as she is flown off the steps of the house. Nobody is here, and the only sign of the new age is her car at the side. Nobody knows she is here. And he knows that. 

“Can we go in?” she sticks to her initial plan, because it is safe. “I want to see you. I need to know if this is real—”

He shakes against her, and they move to the side, stepping into a thicket of trees. There are plenty of them here, and her worry compounds. “Zuko,” she says again. “Zuko? I can’t see you. Where are you taking me—”

The breath is suddenly, rapidly sucked out of her lungs, and her eyes close, and they are no longer moving. They are utterly still. She is utterly still. Something presses against her eyelids, that pressure she now understands. She opens her eyes, and slowly falls to the ground in the same heartbeat. 

It is earth underneath her, pure and coarse, and she does not know what part of Republic City this is, if it is even a part. She should be terrified, because some sort of ghost whisked her away to a place where she is alone, and he might be a figment of her imagination. She turned off her phone location, and nobody knows where she is. Nobody knows what is happening right now. She doesn’t know, either. 

The sun’s rays are still lightly shining above, and she raises her head from where it is pillowed, taking in her surroundings. The trees are crisp and clean, leaves in shades ranging from magenta to bright green, and nothing seems to be moving. The air, the trees—all of it is still, and yet not stifling. The air does not seem humid, simply immobile. All she can hear are her own breaths—

And she sounds loudly as she lurches up and sees a pool of water by her side, crisp and clear and blue, _almost—_ there is a face in its smooth surface.

She stares, and then reaches for it as it ripples. “Hi, Zuko.” 


End file.
